Comments on: Reaction Engines: “Majority” of Experts at Review Found Skylon to be “Viable Concept”

By: Michael Turner

Michael Turner — Sat, 28 Apr 2012 05:36:07 +0000

With the four-hours-to-anywhere talk, it sounds like they anticipate some practical aviation application for this, even if the space launch goal doesn’t pan out.

Liquid hydrogen, liquid oxygen, liquid helium, liquid nitrogen …. this is a total cryocraft concept if there ever was one.

By: Greg Holden

Greg Holden — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 13:31:55 +0000

HI Doug; this update just in from the UK’s BBC website. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17864782

By: Nickolai_the_Russian_Guy

Nickolai_the_Russian_Guy — Wed, 06 Oct 2010 01:27:13 +0000

That’s a healthy amount of skepticism Doug and Jez. I think they’re avoiding the optimistic route because this is one of those ideal concepts that everyone dreams about but is REALLY hard to actually go through with. If they seem overly optimistic about their design, I think it’s more likely they will be readily dismissed by experts who may have once fantasized themselves about a single stage to orbit design that ultimately turned out to be a pipe dream for a whole mess of reasons.

There’s a lot they need to get right here and it won’t be easy. Their schedule is ridiculous as well – they don’t expect to have any sort of real results until 2020 (and I can’t even recall what they plan to have by then, but I’m almost positive it’s not a test flight). In my limited knowledge of space programmes, I’ve never even seen governments estimate first test flights beyond 10 years out. So they’re being really cautious and I think that’s good because it makes people take them more seriously.

By: Jez

Jez — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 20:35:51 +0000

It also sounds like the precise and considered words of an engineer or scientist. It is Reaction Engines’ sober news page, not a marketing release.

It appears to me that even world class rocket scientists will have their doubts about Skylon until some breakthroughs begin to be demonstrated, such as the heat exchangers.

I don’t think Reaction Engines ever speak in terms more strongly than this. They do however say that this is far ahead of any other concept that they know about – and as world class experts in the field I am inclined to believe them.

Yes you can review those words the way you have, but it is my view that that wasn’t the intended meaning.

Richard Branson is strapping a rocket to a plane to get just beyond the defined boundary of space (110 km – not orbit). I think it is great, especially with the media interest it generates in space, but it doesn’t move us forward. No fancy engines or heat shields required. NASA started throwing things like that up 50 years ago. It is easy to blow the trumpet when you aren’t doing anything new. SpaceShipTwo is fun, but not new.

Skylon, on the other hand, is unproven, revolutionary, cutting edge and planning to get up to 15 tonnes into low-earth orbit (e.g. the ISS at 300KM). Being able to easily transport such mass means a transfer vehicle could be launched on Skylon to live in low earth orbit which in turn could transport loads to much higher orbits e.g. lunar transport orbit.

However good a concept is and however confident Reaction Engines are in it, there are no absolute certainties. As scientists I would expect them to reflect that in the language of scientific caution.